Cold Blood, Warm Hearts
by fleurofthecourt
Summary: "Change me back," he hissed as the demon took off, leaving him alone in his flat. He was discouraged too, that the hiss was not accompanied by any intelligible human sound. It was merely a hiss. [Crowley/Aziraphale, post canon]
1. Chapter 1

A/N 1: I haven't written fic in soooo long. I hope you lovely readers enjoy.

A/N 2: Just for the sake of clarity, I've read the book and watched the show...and because of that, and me getting a little mixed up, this story is set in the present day but the events of the canon story happened in the early 90s when the book was originally published.

* * *

"Well, you can't kill me. You lot have already tried that."

"Perhaps not," the demon said casually, clearly unconcerned. She was newly minted, so to speak, and had enough human creativity left in her to make Crowley a little nervous. "That doesn't mean I can't make your life a little ...complicated."

She rubbed her fingers together as faint gold sparks fizzled between her fingers. She uncurled her palm, and a red, powdery substance popped from her hand, engulfing the surrounding air.

Crowley coughed on the smoke, irritated.

He could grant that she had showmanship, unnecessary though it was.

"All that razzle dazzle, sort of ..." what it "sort of" was died in Crowley's throat and became a sort of minced coughing.

He fell limp before curling in on himself, trying to prevent his clothes from ripping as he became lankier, longer, and much much greener.

"Change me back," he hissed as the demon took off, leaving him alone in his flat. He was discouraged too, that the hiss was not accompanied by any intelligible human sound. It was merely a hiss.

He slumped against the startling cold floor and hissed much louder. The sound didn't even have the decency to echo.

Not that he assumed it would do any good, as she'd been able to transform him in the first place, he tried several dozen times to will himself back to human form before deciding he had two options.

He could either freeze, well, not to death, certainly, but to a distinct amount of discomfort on his office floor.

Or he could seek help.

A certain amount of dignity aside, he preferred the second option. The problem, of course, was hands. Specifically, that he didn't have any.

It made opening doors and dialing a telephone phone difficult.

Perplexed, he slithered around the perimeter of the room in contemplation, wishing that the sun was up or his heater was on. Or that he had the ability to shiver as the cool tile rubbed unpleasantly against his underside.

Settling on calling for help, Crowley curled himself around the leg of his throne and inched his way to the phone.

"If I'd known I'd have to climb the bloody thing, wouldn't have gotten one so tall," he muttered as he slithered across the desk.

He nudged the phone from its cradle and waited to hear dial tone before delicately pressing his head into each key of Aziraphale's number.

Aziraphale answered on the third ring. "Crowley! Ah, I was just thinking, if you pop over to the shop, we could walk to the bakery down the street this afternoon. You missed the most wonderful baklava yesterday. I think you should try it if there's any left."

There was a lull where Crowley should have agreed to the bakery and the baklava. He would have. More for Aziraphale's delight in the baked goods than the baked goods themselves; those were merely a bonus.

"Not in the mood for Greek pastries? Perhaps we could try some beignet. It looked lovely as well. We could share."

This charitable and delicious sounding offer was followed by another lull.

"Crowley? Are you there? Have you, what is it that the humans say now..."butt dialed" me?" Aziraphale managed to somehow sound both slightly scandalized and completely delighted by this turn of phrase.

Crowley winced. He did have a mobile now, in addition to his car phone, a sleek black number that was usually tucked in the back pocket of his pants. It was still there now, abandoned along with said pants until he regained the necessary appendages to tap on its over sensitive screen.

Aziraphale, of course, didn't realize he'd called from the landline. "Think, angel," he hissed. "Think."

"Crowley?" Aziraphale asked again.

"Can you hear me at all?" Crowley asked doubtfully.

The answering dial tone confirmed that Aziraphale could not.

Muttering to himself about the headache it was undoubtedly going to cause, he pushed the phone back into its cradle, out again, and redialed.

He assumed if he called enough times, Aziraphale would cobble something together.

Sure enough, on the third call, Aziraphale simply said, "I'm coming over."

XXX

By the time Aziraphale was knocking timidly on his flat door, like he didn't have a key to just come in, Crowley was curled under his duvet, shaking.

It wasn't helping, but after making his own body heat for millennia, he liked to believe it was.

"Crowley? Are you here?" Aziraphale shouted to the dark and seemingly unoccupied rooms. "Crowley? Are you in some kind of trouble? Or something?"

Or something indeed.

"Yes, angel, now come find me," he hissed. The sound didn't carry.

After ten long minutes of his name being shouted into nooks and crannies Crowley had forgot even existed, Aziraphale made it to the bedroom.

He radiated both physical and metaphorical warmth. Crowley immediately wriggled free of the duvet and virtually dove for his coat sleeve.

Aziraphale, unprepared for anything, let alone a snake, jumping out of his boyfriend's sheets and onto his arm, swatted reflexively, knocking Crowley to the floor.

Crowley's head was swimming as Aziraphale crouched down to inspect him.

Aziraphale's eyes, though blurry, seemed to crinkle with confusion. "Crawly!?"

He blinked a few times for good measure then asked, "Crowley? Is that you?"

Crowley reluctantly and slowly moved his now pounding head in a "yes" motion.

"How? How did this happen? When did this happen?" Aziraphale put his head to his hand. "Your side! Your, um, former side, I suppose... they've come after you again, haven't they?" At this point, he began to pace. "Well, we've had a good two, no, is it three now? Three decades of being left alone. It was nice while it lasted. But now what are we going to do? We've already convinced them we're unkillable. Don't think we can pull that off again. Can we?"

As Aziraphale spiralled, Crowley wound himself around his ankle. They could worry about how he got in this state later. He had more urgent problems.

Aziraphale likely couldn't do anything for his headache, unless snakes could take Tylenol. He didn't know. He'd never previously been in a position to find out. But Aziraphale definitely could help with his current lack of body heat. That he had plenty of to share.

As he reached the slight gap between his sock and his pant leg, Crowley practically nuzzled against his bare ankle. Even that small amount of warm skin was divine.

Almost immediately, Aziraphale yelped and just barely managed not to kick him across the room. "Oh goodness. Are you alright? I'm so, so sorry. It's just, you're freezing."

A beat later, Aziraphale's hand returned to his face. "You're freezing! Oh dear, we need to get you warmed up. But how? It's so drafty in here and the sun's gone down. Is that what you were doing in the bed? You never use it. Of course, it was. Hmmm. You don't have a fireplace, do you?"

Crowley would roll his eyes if he could. He loved Aziraphale. He did. But sometimes. Sometimes, he was incredibly dense.

Instead of answering, he attempted to nuzzle against his ankle again. At which point, Aziraphale had the epiphany he'd been waiting for. "Of course, dear. Sorry I didn't think of it sooner."

He set both of his hands on the floor and waited for Crowley to crawl into them before setting him around his neck. Then he fretted with his shirt collar and coat collar until he was satisfied Crowley had adequate access to his warm skin. "Bit of a temporary solution, but I suppose for now, it'll do."

Crowley nestled down and practically buried himself in the shirt and his angel's skin. It was pleasantly warm to the touch and smelled like baked goods and cologne.

As far as temporary solutions went, the two of them had come up with far worse.

He really couldn't complain.


	2. Chapter 2

Two days later, as Crowley lie in what was essentially a very large terrarium, he felt that he very much could complain. He was not some common household pet. He was a demon for heaven, hell, or someone's sake!

Aziraphale had made a number of arguments as to why Crowley couldn't stay wrapped around his neck forever, but Crowley felt that he could counter most of those objections with the fact that they were immortal. The problem being that he didn't actually want to stay there. Comfortable and warm though it was, being there meant he was still a snake and a common garden variety one at that.

So, reluctantly, he coiled himself on top of a rock in the middle of his greenhouse, which Aziraphale had miracled full of sand, rocks, and low sitting heat lamps. He watched drowsily as Aziraphale poured over Agnes Nutter's True and Accurate Prophecies, The Third Part, on the large rock that was currently serving as his chair.

The leather bound book had made its way to Crowley's flat by special delivery ten years after the apocalypse didn't happen with a note that indicated they may find the book useful, but they must never take it to France.*

Aziraphale was nearing the end of his second cup of tea when he jumped up, nearly knocking the cup into the sand. "I've found something!"

Crowley raised himself up and looked expectantly at him.

"She says right here, '_when ye, foolish principality,_' that, uh, would be me, '_discover him that you love as he once was_,' and that, um, that would be you, it says... oh, you won't like this, it says,'_thee coldest ice from above will undo what they from below hath done_."

Crowley crawled closer to Aziraphale and craned to read the book over his shoulder. While Agnes may have already proved that her prophecies were, in fact, true and accurate, Crowley still couldn't help questioning them even when he understood them.

But Crowley's eyes locked onto Aziraphales', and he knew they both agreed. Aziraphale needed to miracle up the coldest ice. On him.

Aziraphale put his hand beneath Crowley's chin gently, his hand already an unnatural cold. "I doubt this will be pleasant. Do forgive me."

Ice rose slowly from Aziraphale's hand, slowly coating Crowley's skin. He trembled beneath it, not sure what was worse, the cold itself or the traumatized look on Aziraphale's face as he made it.

He felt strongly that there was nothing at all to forgive. Aziraphale certainly didn't want to be doing what he was doing.

Despite a valiant attempt not to, he shook more and more as Aziraphale made more ice. And, then, suddenly, he couldn't tremble at all.

His innate desire to act human and attempt the human solution of shivering was being overwritten by snake biology. Damn brumation.

He felt as though he'd been dunked in the Arctic and couldn't escape. His movements had become so languid and lethargic that he felt paralyzed.

Worse still, Aziraphale had noticed. He wanted to stop. "Oh Crowley, I can't do this. It could...oh, it could destroy you."

"Angel," Crowley hissed. "You can't stop now."

It was all he managed before the world went dark.

XXX

Crowley woke up slowly to the low rumble of cars passing on the street below and the soft patter of rain against the window. He was groggy and cold and felt that he could sleep for quite some time longer if it weren't for the blasted cars and rain outside.

He folded his pillow up against his ears to drown out the sound. Then as some of the fog in his mind lifted, he immediately shot up, "Hands! I have hands!"

He kissed them both on each side before looking up to see Aziraphale standing in the doorframe grinning at him.

"And a body to go with them, it appears," he said, soft and teasing with a forced lightness.

"Aziraphale," Crowley said, his name dripping like warm butter from his tongue. "You're here."

"Where else would I be?" Aziraphale asked as he planted his hands on his thighs and sat gently on the edge of the bed, before moving one hand to Crowley's thigh and pressing his hand into it. He shut his eyes tight as he did. "Oh, Crowley, I thought I'd killed you. You were limp and cold and unmoving. I..."

He choked back what was clearly a sob, a tear or two still escaping from the corner of his eye. He wiped at them wordlessly with his free hand.

Crowley decided he would have to exact vengeance on that human turned demon that didn't even know what color of serpent he ought to be.

Her and Agnes Nutter both for making Aziraphale cry.

"But you haven't, angel. It's alright. You haven't," Crowley said as he slid over and pulled Aziraphale closer. "All the pieces are still here. Just where and how they're supposed to be."

Aziraphale relaxed minutely against his side, and they were dangerously close to Aziraphale telling him something good about him. He grasped for something, anything, to keep up demonic appearances, for, well, no one, really, "But don't think you're getting out of fixing these clothes. Just because they aren't two centuries out of date doesn't mean they don't need looked after. You threw me in bed with them on, and the state of them!"

Aziraphale sagged into him, lazily miracling the wrinkles from his clothes, knowing perfectly well that even that poor of an effort was all bluster, the bastard.

He pulled his arm back under the duvet and pulled all of it closer to his skin as the chill of the past day still seemed reluctant to leave his body.

"Are you still cold?" Aziraphale asked, concern evident in his voice.

"A bit, yeah," Crowley said noncommittally, lowering the duvet slightly. It had been one thing to consider the cold an emergency before when he was a cold blooded snake. Now that he was human again, it was a lingering annoyance. It would pass.

"Anything I can do to help?" Aziraphale asked.

He must certainly could, Crowley thought, but again it was one thing to aggressively seek the angel's body heat as a snake but now that he was human again, it seemed like crossing a boundary. One that they hadn't crossed. One that he wasn't certain they would cross. It was fine if they didn't. They didn't need to.

But, if they were going to eventually cross it, as their relationship moved at the pace of a snail, he was betting on some time in the late 2500s, maybe the 3000s.

Though the fact that they'd kissed so shortly after the apocalypse had honestly shocked him.

Aziraphale, of course, was full of surprises.

"Skin to skin contact," he said brightly. "It's worked before, and I know I've read in some romantic survivalist nonsense that humans, when they're stranded in the cold on camping trips or someone's fallen in a freezing river or lake, that there's just no choice but for them to strip off their clothes and huddle for warmth."

The frankly demonic glint in Aziraphale's eye suggested that he hardly thought any of this was nonsense. Crowley parroted him, "No choice, mmm?"

"No choice at all, I'm afraid," Aziraphale repeated, shaking his head in the feigned offering of bad news.

"Well," Crowley said. "If there's no choice then..."

He moved to pull off his shirt, looked over to see Aziraphale delicately draping his waistcoat over a chair, then hesitated. "Aziraphale, I hate to ask, breaking the mood and all, but, what precisely are we doing?"

Aziraphale stared at him blankly. "I've just said. We're going to strip down to our knickers and, um, well, we're going to cuddle until you're warm enough and then after that too, um, if you like."

Crowley pinched at his temple. "That's how all those romance novels go, is it?"

"Well, uh, no, they often move past cuddling to indulge in, um, more, um, carnal pleasures," Aziraphale stammered, blushing and awkwardly tracing his finger over the buttons of his shirt, clearly uncomfortable.

Crowley was immensely glad he'd asked.

"We can just 'cuddle,' Aziraphale. That'll warm me up fine," Crowley said. "'Carnal pleasures,' if you must call it that, only interests me if it interests you."

"Oh, really?" Aziraphale said, sounding both incredibly relieved and grateful. "I'm not sure about it."

"Then 'cuddling,' it is," Crowley said, wishing there was any way to make the word sound less offensively like a mewling kitten. Appearances and all.

They then both stripped down to their knickers, and, shivering against the drafty air of his apartment, Crowley lifted up his duvet cover and motioned for Aziraphale to slip beneath.

With the duvet firmly settled above them, Crowley leaned into Aziraphale, grasping at the promising warmth of his skin. "Is this alright, Angel?"

"Mmm, it's quite alright," Aziraphale hummed, content but thoughtful. "If it isn't too much trouble, though, could we turn around?"

Crowley huffed in slight amusement before rolling over. "Better?"

Aziraphale placed one hand over Crowley's midsection and started to comb the other through the short strands of Crowley's hair. "Much."

They lay there quietly and contentedly drinking in their much closer than usual contact for some time before Aziraphale hummed thoughtfully, fretfully. "We've got to do something, Crowley. You're not safe here anymore. The demons know you're here."

"Just the one demon. Hardly even a demon, really. Didn't even know what an occult serpent ought to look like. Made me too small and too green," Crowley said, turning over so that they were face to face. "Not that you noticed...Crawly indeed..."

He practically growled his former name, and Aziraphale looked abashed.

"It's been over 6,000 years, and you were you and you were a snake. If you're snake, and you're you, you're Crawly," Aziraphale rambled before abruptly stopping. He gave Crowley a hard look, "Now don't change the subject. This is serious, Crowley. They've found you here already, twice, and now I've gone and done several miracles here, without thinking. Oh, I should have taken you to the book shop..."

"The bookshop burned down with you in it, Aziraphale. Couldn't forget if I tried," Crowley winced at the memory. Time and the fact that Aziraphale was still definitely there and alive made it sting less, but it had still happened, and he couldn't live with anything like it happening again. "It's not safe either, if they're coming after me, they'll be sure to come after you as well. I think we're a two for one special now."

"Then what?" Aziraphale asked.

Crowley twined his fingers between Aziraphale's and began rubbing his thumb along his knuckles. After a moment's contemplation, he stated, 'There's always Alpha Centauri."

Aziraphale's thumb began tracing over top of his. "How about a cottage? In the countryside? We could come home to each other every night, like the humans do. We'd know the other was safe that way. I'd like that."

Crowley nosed against Aziraphale's cheek, slid down and caught his lips. They kissed gently before he pulled back. "I'd like that too, Angel. I'd like that too."

* * *

*Agnes knew, of course, that they would eventually do exactly that. It would be dropped on a plate of Coq Au Vin and subsequently covered in white wine. It would, however, stay away from America, Anathema, and all her future descendants.


End file.
